The main door leading into Chestnut Street was locked and Billy had no key—which I well knew. As for going out the Second Street door, the way I had entered, that seemed to me an improbability. I confess I was stupefied. Though it has taken several minutes to jot down these impressions, I assure my readers that hardly as many seconds were consumed in the actual happening. It may have been the fix we were in that brought to the surface the staying qualities possessed for the emergency by Billy. The ague which had tackled him for the instant was quickly shed, and, catching me by the shoulder, he shoved me out of the vault.
“Close the vault door right!” he whispered, “and get in the vestibule of the Chestnut Street entrance and wait there until you hear me in a fit of coughing. Then out you go by the Second Street door. I’ll let in the clerk—for it’s one of them, I know—and take him in the president’s office.”
I was in Billy’s hands and so must trust to him. Really, I began to feel safe. It took only a moment to lock the vault and less time to reach the vestibule; meanwhile Billy leisurely walked to the door. The knocking had become of the impatient sort by this time. When he finally opened the door, it was with the air of one who’d been in a mighty hurry. I could hear every word said.
“Are you dead, Billy?” was the greeting to the watchman, as the impatient knocking one stepped in; “it’s after eight, and I’ve been rapping an hour.”
“Sorry, sir; but I was in the cellar, fixing up the fires, when you came. I heard you from the first, and hustled for all I was worth.” This was a bushel-basketful of apology, and, being well put, had the desired effect. The perturbed clerk calmed down immediately.
“By the way,” said Billy, as he stepped in President Noblit’s private office, “I saw one of our old friends that used to be employed here. I met him last night on the way home—poor fellow!”
It didn’t seem to me that Billy had chosen good bait with which to catch the clerk, but it did the work, so what matter. In a moment I heard them both in the private room, and Billy was saying something about the former bank clerk being on his uppers, and that it was a case sad enough to fetch tears to a marble statue. It may have been that a shower of tears attacked Billy, for suddenly he was choking like a man with a terrible case of tuberculosis.
“Good for Billy!” I thought, as, stepping out of the vestibule and passing within a few feet of the office door, I quickly found myself in Second Street. Out in the free air again and clear from exposure, I felt glad, as can well be imagined. And as for Billy, he was a jewel, from my viewpoint, doubt not. Afterward I learned that not a thing had been left by us, in our hasty exit, to arouse suspicion. One resolution I formed immediately, and that was, to keep a more accurate knowledge of the passing of time. I don’t know that I had ever before, or have since, been guilty of such palpable carelessness. It might have been an expensive experience.
Not much was accomplished by the visit, either. I ascertained that the locks on the tellers’ safes were not of the make to which my “Little Joker” could be attached and the combination numbers purloined that way. I confessed disappointment, no doubt, because everything seemed up to that time to favor me. However, I adopted a unique method to obtain the numbers, and it shall be seen with what success.
Perhaps it may be in keeping with my desire to assist the banking world to say, right here, “Follow me closely, and benefit thereby, if I show any carelessness on the part of those who had the keeping of the combination numbers of the Corn Exchange Bank.” My varied experience in manipulating combination locks and with those in charge of them made me confident that I could find recorded, somewhere, the numbers of the tellers’ safes. I had always believed that nine tellers out of ten would not tax their memories with lock numbers, but would, instead, record them on a slip of paper, or in a private memoranda book; so on this supposition I determined to make an investigation ere I resorted to the use of explosives on the money safes. What was more reasonable than that the records were kept in a private drawer?